Former U.S. president charged with ‘criminal scheme to corrupt’ the 2016 presidential election
In opening statements in Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial, prosecutors said Monday that the former president “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt” the 2016 presidential election.
Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records as part of an alleged scheme to bury stories that he thought might hurt his presidential campaign in 2016. Attorney Todd Blanche provided an extensive account Monday of Cohen’s criminal record and his history of lying under oath. He said that Cohen turned against the former president only after he was not given a job in the administration and found himself in legal trouble.
“I suspect the defense will go to great lengths to get you to reject his testimony precisely because it is so damning,” Cohen said. Trump “had nothing to do” with the invoice, the check being generated or the entry on the ledger, Blanche said. Blanche took particular issue with the prosecution’s insinuation that attempting to influence an election connotes illegality.
But prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said Trump still had a few “loose ends” to tie up at the time, including reimbursing his then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for the payments he had given to Stormy Daniels. “At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors, referring to the scheme as a “conspiracy” and “election fraud, pure and simple.
Speaking of arrangements made to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to suppress her claims of a nearly year-long affair with the married Trump, Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information … become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.” All 18 jurors looked directly at the veteran prosecutor, who stood at a lectern in the middle of the courtroom about halfway between them and Trump.While prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial will be allowed to question him in a limited manner — if he testifies — about his recent civil fraud and writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him, the judge has barred them from bringing up two other legal cases.
Because the panel was selected over several days, this is the first time the full jury has been together. It’s also the first time jurors are seeing the courtroom packed with reporters — a departure from last week when the gallery was full of prospective jurors and there were just a few reporters permitted inside.Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush money case can cross-examine him about several of his recent legal setbacks if he chooses to testify, the judge ruled.
Trump’s lawyers have objected to the use of a transcript. But Merchan said that in his view there is “no reason” why a transcript of the video, where Trump boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without permission, “should not be admitted into evidence.”Donald Trump’s hush money trial will adjourn earlier than expected on Monday to accommodate an alternate juror’s emergency dental appointment in the afternoon.
Trump also spoke at length about another hearing taking place at a nearby court, regarding the $175 million bond he paid in his civil fraud case. Regulations limiting media coverage in courtrooms date back nearly a century, when the spectacle of bright flashbulbs and camera operators standing on witness tables during the 1935 trial of the man accused of kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh’s baby son horrified the legal community, according to a 2022 report by the New York-based Fund for Modern Courts.
MICHAEL COHEN — Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. He was once a fierce Trump ally, but now he’s a key prosecution witness against his former boss. Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017. He later went to federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations relating to the hush money arrangements and other, unrelated crimes.
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